Re:China's Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
by T-A on Monday April 29, 2024 @01:40PM
(#40201484)
I agree about China's partners. Russia may have some legacy technology to contribute, the others are lightweights. That aspect of the program is mainly about politics.
The Chinese space program however looks serious enough. Some recent press:
https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/long-march-9-rocket-will-be-...
https://www.space.com/china-names-spacecraft-astronaut-moon-...
https://spacenews.com/china-to-debut-large-reusable-rockets-...
I get the impression that it'll fall apart once Artemis starts doing crewed lunar landings and China will just have to do its own independent thing. Kind of like the initial claims about Russia participating in China's space station, where it turns out that Tiangong is in an orbit that Soyuz can't even reach from its current launch sites. Then Russia claimed to be building their own space station for post-ISS activities, only to later downgrade further into a station that is not always occupied.
Put differently, it seems even less serious than when any US official uses 'sustainable' and 'SLS' in the same sentence.